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‘Threat to computer networks is tangible and expanding in both scope and frequency’

Paul Martin, the NASA inspector general, is reporting NASA‘s computer network was so vulnerable to cyber attack that computer hackers could take control of a spacecraft while in flight, according to a report fromJoseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

In part, the report states, “We found that computer servers on NASA’s agency-wide mission network had high-risk vulnerabilities that were exploitable from the Internet. Specifically, six computer servers associated with IT assets that control spacecraft and contain critical data had vulnerabilities that would allow a remote attacker to take control of or render them unavailable.”

These weaknesses could have a “catastrophic” effect on NASA operations, his report explains.

As Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, turns away from its Western links, it is aligning itself more and more with Iran, Syria and Russia, especially because of its quickly developing energy and trade connections to the central part of what was the old Soviet Union, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

From a strategic standpoint, the development gives Moscow an opportunity to further undermine a plan by NATO to spread its security arrangement further east in a region Moscow considers to be its sphere of influence.

While both parties agreed to increase trade from the current $35 billion to $100 billion within the next five years, the most significant development was an agreement in their strategic relationship on energy cooperation.

In addition to concessions on various pipelines between the two countries, Erdogan pledged to pursue Russian construction and operation of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant.

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

The Turks were left with little choice but to involve Russia more in its energy future, given that Turkey imports some 70 percent of its natural gas from Russia.

That dependency also gives the Russians considerable political and economic leverage over Ankara and increases Moscow’s influence over Europe’s energy future through greater control of existing and proposed pipelines that provide European countries with more than 40 percent of their energy needs.

Various pipelines with Turkish participation as a gate to the West, however, are but one source of control Russia is exhibiting over the Turks.

The more significant one is Russia’s proposal to construct and operate Turkey’s first nuclear power plant.

Erdogan and Putin signed a commitment to construct the nuclear power plant, even though there is some domestic opposition due to the existing heavy reliance on Russia for energy.

The plant is to be built on the Mediterranean coast near Akkuyu. A consortium to construct the nuclear power plant includes Russia’s Atomstroyexport, Inter Rao Eus and Turkey’s Park Teknik.

Putin said that Russia had “significant advantages over the competition” to build the nuclear plant in Turkey. In one sense, he was alluding to the virtual energy grip Moscow enjoys over Ankara.

LONDON – British MI6 intelligence agency investigators have discovered Iran has set up a new smuggling network in Taiwan to obtain specialized equipment used for the production of nuclear weapons, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Insiders report Iran has established companies to buy the equipment on the world markets and then smuggle it into Tehran.

The purchases have involved pressure transducers, which are used to produce weapons-grade uranium, and Secret Intelligence Service officers have established that nuclear scientists from Tehran have held meetings in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, to buy the units.

The equipment is stored by the companies in a high-security area on the island.

The companies are fronted by local Chinese businessmen, and MI6 officers believe some of them have worked in China‘s own nuclear industry before moving to Taiwan. The intelligence officers have also traced bank accounts held by the businessmen to banks in the Cayman Islands.

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

“It suggests that they are almost certainly well paid for the work on behalf of Iran,” said a senior intelligence source in London.

Iran has been trying to acquire the equipment for more than a year. But Russia and European companies refused to sell Tehran the transducers.

Now China has joined in refusing to sell such specialized technology after Beijing supported a censure motion passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna last month following the revelation that Tehran was building a second uranium enrichment facility at Qom.

At the end of this month, the U.N. will be asked to impose a new round of sanctions against Iran unless it agrees to abandon its nuclear program.

A report passed on by MI6 to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna last week revealed Iran had already acquired 100 transducers from Taiwan.

China is becoming concerned by the increased presence of the United States in Afghanistan and is complaining about the U.S. lease renewal at the Manas Air Base in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, suggesting that these activities are part of an overall containment effort against China, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

The complaint comes at the same time Chinese officials have expressed alarm over what they view as a growing alliance between the U.S. and India, which they perceive as designed to alter the Asian strategic balance in what Beijing always has regarded as its sphere of influence.

According to security analysts, the Chinese perceive the recent efforts by the U.S. in Central and South Asia as intended to force the Chinese to move troops away from the East where Beijing thinks the U.S. wants to increase its presence.

While this could lessen pressure somewhat on Taiwan, the analysts add that it forces Beijing to move more troops to the west where it also is encountering increased unrest with its Muslim Uighurs in its province of Xinjiang.

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

The Hong Kong Ta Kung Pao, a Chinese government-owned newspaper, claims the U.S. was seeking to “achieve its blockade of Russia in the north, deterrence of China in the east, suppression of Iran in the south, control of petroleum energy resources, anti-terror, and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, firmly occupy Afghanistan politically, resources-wise, and militarily and gradually control Central Asia comprehensively and then proceed to control the Eurasian continent and serve the protection of its world hegemony.”

Ta Kung Pao, like other official government newspapers, is closely associated with the Communist Party of China, Beijing’s supreme political authority, with control over all state apparatuses as well as the legislative process.

In commenting on the recent renewal of the lease at Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan just outside of the capital, Bishkek, Ta Kung Pao regarded continued U.S. presence there as a military threat.

“The deployment of a modern military force toward China’s weakest western region enables U.S. military power to point straight at our northwestern borders for the first time against the Cold War, contain the momentum of China’s power from pressing onward from the eastern region into the East Pacific, form a situation that allows the cutoff at any time of the energy lifeline in the Central Asian region on which China depends most, and also turn China’s original great strategic rear into a new strategic front,” Ta Kung Pao said. “Therefore, it can be said that Manas poses a direct military threat to our Xinjiang and western region.”

A key Saudi Arabia leader is organizing a pushback against Iran’s plans to agitate Shiite Muslims across Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations, an effort that may even involve introducing Saudi Arabian troops into Iraq to protect the Sunni Arab minority there, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Saudi Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz has become the point man in the efforts to defuse Iran’s planning.

Nayef, who is deputy prime minister to Saudi King Abdullah Bin-Abd-al-AzizAl Saud, is working on strategies to thwart Iran’s efforts to agitate Shiite Muslims across the region.

He also has been the Saudi Interior Minister since 1975 and is responsible for maintaining order within the Saudi kingdom. For that reason he is particularly concerned over Iran’s recent efforts to agitate the Shiite minority inside the kingdom.

That worry has been aggravated by an ongoing insurgency in neighboring Yemen, where government forces are battling Shiite radicals in a confrontation that could spill over into Saudi Arabia.

Because Iran has begun to excite the growing Shiite populations in the Arab countries, Saudi Arabia has decided to put the tough interior minister in charge of coming up with a plan to counter Iran’s growing influence.

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

Ironically, it was Nayef who in April 2001 went to Tehran to renew diplomatic relations between the two countries. He also has met with Iranian officials over time to discuss such issues as counter-terrorism, drug-trafficking, money laundering and illegal immigration.

But Nayef recently has been vocal in his criticism of Iran for its financial and military support of Hezbollah, a Shiite faction, and Hamas, of Sunni extraction, even though Hamas has backers in Saudi Arabia and reportedly gets support from it, too.

Recent revelations that a Hezbollah cell was in Egypt to attack tourists there prompted major criticism from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt toward Iran. All three countries are predominantly Sunni and have been very vocal against Iran’s recent resurgence.

Nayef’s increased role in toughening the Saudi stance against Iran also has come about as a result of Iran’s nuclear development program. The Saudis are quite concerned that Iran will use the program to develop a nuclear bomb.

Iran may consider a proposal from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to build a backup “nuclear village” in his nation to produce nuclear energy and also to have a safe fall-back production capability in case there is an attack by Israel or the United States on nuclear facilities in Iran, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Chavez, in a visit last week to Iran, proposed to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the idea of building a project in Venezuela.

Security sources have confirmed such a “nuclear village” could become the Iranian nuclear production alternative, or a location to hide especially critical nuclear components from attack.

With the United Nations about ready to take up the issue of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear enrichment efforts, such a prospect of attack, particularly from Israel, is increasingly likely. Israeli officials have stated on numerous occasions that a nuclear Iran would threaten Israel’s existence.

While the U.N. is expected to consider proposals for sanctions on Iran, there is an expectation that Russia and China will reject further sanctions. If that happens, security experts believe that Israel then could declare diplomacy a failure, opening the way for its long-intimated attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The issue of nuclear cooperation between Iran and Venezuela arose in the context of military and security cooperation agreements reached between their two leaders.

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

France was quick to object to any nuclear cooperation, saying that it would violate various United Nations resolutions, including U.N. Security Council Resolution 1737. That resolution calls for all U.N. members to refrain from the direct or indirect purchase of nuclear-related technology from Iran.

Iran and Venezuela are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, and their legislatures have ratified it, compelling their compliance. At the same time, it allows them to undertake a peaceful nuclear development program.

The purpose of the NPT is to allow for the promotion of cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy while trying to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation. The NPT is the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to disarmament by nuclear countries.

To date, some 187 countries are signatories to the NPT. It offers a safeguard system under the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, to verify treaty compliance through inspections. At the same time, it promotes equal access to nuclear technology.

Security experts believe, however, that efforts to insure effective Iranian compliance with the NPT or the U.N. resolutions would be difficult given the need for policing and investigation, something which most countries are not equipped to undertake and may not have the political will to do.

Iranian interest in nuclear cooperation with Venezuela has come up in the past. In 2006, Ahmadinejad and Chavez voiced the need for similar cooperation. At the time, Iranian parliament speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel said that Iran would study the possibility.

There are ominous signs suggesting Iran may be preparing for sanctions from the United Nations and possibly even an attack from Isreal over its developing nuclear program, according to a report fromJoseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Just as the U.N. General Assembly is due to meet later this month to consider what to do about Iran’s insistence on enriching uranium as part of its nuclear development program, Tehran has announced that it is open to further discussions on the issue, but it will not be pressured to meet any September deadline.

“The Iranian nation favors interaction and dialogue but will not surrender to pressure,” according to Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi.

No one in authority in the West believes Iran is open to dialogue, since Iranian officials have continuously made such pronouncements in the past when backed into a corner, with the effect of causing some kind of delay in the UN sanctions process.

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

That may be about to change and Tehran knows it. It appears to be preparing not only for increased sanctions but the prospect that Israel may wait a few months, declare that the diplomatic course isn’t working and carry out what it has been threatening for months – attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Israelis, however, realize that it probably could not undertake such an attack without U.S. help to gain access across other countries to carry out such a strike. It does have the option – through its recently dispatched submarines – of launching ballistic missiles which could obviate the need for country clearances for aircraft bombing runs.

While the Obama administration has requested no surprises from the Israelis, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden in July gave what amounted to tacit approval to such an attack.

He said that the U.S. would not stand in the way of Israel’s efforts to defend itself.

Seeing these prospects, Iran may be gearing up to any Israeli attack.

Tehran has just appointed a known terrorist as its next defense minister. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi is a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC, and has been in charge of defense procurement and Iran’s missile program. He also is very much involved in Iran’s nuclear bomb project that western intelligence services say Iran is pursuing.

India is trying to figure out whether it should be focusing on the potential threat from either Pakistan or China, even as China is adding to its options for military maneuvers, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Until now, New Delhi has regarded Pakistan as its major nemesis, but increased tensions on the border between India and China may prompt a re-evaluation, and the probabilities don’t look good.

Pakistan and China have been cooperating, and the reality is that India’s military would be no match for a confrontation with China alone. With China and Pakistan working together against India, any confrontation would be formidable for India.

In a new report, India’s Ministry of Defense says China is “enhancing connectivity with Pakistan through the territory of Jammu and Kashmir, illegally occupied by China and Pakistan, and with other countries, will also have direct military implications for India.”

Until recently, India emphasized building its naval capability with a de-emphasis on its Army and Air Force, critical to protect the much disputed and vital Arunachal Pradesh region. China vehemently lays claim to the region, as G2B recently pointed out (July 10, “China-Indian conflict simmering on low boil”).

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

India has concentrated its efforts on rebuilding its blue-water Navy, seeing that the Chinese Navy far outstripped its own capability. The reality, however, is that the build-up that India has undertaken still will not begin to match anything the Chinese Navy has.

For example, China’s military has a major missile arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles. China’s DF-31A ballistic missile can hit targets 11,200 kilometers, or 6,959 miles, away while its JL-2 SLBM, or submarine-launched ballistic missile, can travel more than 7,200 kilometers, or 4,474 miles. In addition to its SLBMs, Chinas has 75 major warships and 62 submarines, 10 of which are nuclear-powered.

India has neither ICBMs nor SLBMs and has only 30 warships and 16 aging submarines, none of which are nuclear-powered.

With the June re-election of India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India has shifted its priority to expanding its Army and Air Force capability, something that has infuriated the Chinese.

This renewed emphasis allows India to place more of its military in the Arunachal Pradesh region. Until that occurred, China was beginning to play down its military claims on the region.

According to security experts, this shift in priority from naval projection to building up the Army and Air Force will provide India a greater deterrence and self-defense ability in the areas along the Sino-Indian border.

Russia may have an important reason for reasserting itself in the Caucasus beyond recalling the grandeur of the old Soviet Union or even controlling the flow of oil from the Caspian Sea: It may be seeking control over a buffer zone between its borders and a rising level of radical Islam, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

The region that includes the North Caucasus from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea has come to be referred to as the Caucasus Emirate. It also includes the Russian portion of North Ossetia and South Ossetia, which is part of the Republic of Georgia.

Also in Georgia is Abkhazia, another breakaway province, which is becoming increasingly Islamic and has undertaken operations in the past with Islamic rebels from Chechnya.

The region includes other neighboring Russian regions of Ingushetia, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachayevo-Cherkessia and Chechnya, which borders Georgia to the north.

Islamic radicals look upon the Caucasus Emirate to include all of the North Caucasus and South Caucasus, which comprise Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. The commander-in-chief of the Caucasus Emirate is Dokka Umarov.

The rebels are said to be active in all the mountain areas of the North Caucasus, from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea.

One of the main ideologists of the Caucasus Emirates, Movladi Udugov, said the militants had been monitoring Russian movements near Georgia. As director of the National Information Service of the Caucasus Emirate out of Ingushetia, Udugov said its intelligence had warned him that Russia planned to attack Georgia in August. Ingushetia is east of North Ossetia in Russia.

“So far, neither Tbilisi nor Washington has turned to us with any requests or proposals,” he said.

The Caucasus Emirate is anti-Russian and monitors closely Russian troop movements. Udugov said that rebel websites had monitored Russian armored columns from Chechnya to North Ossetia and then to the Rokcky tunnel located on the South Ossetian side of the Russian-Georgian border.

The rebel websites also had reported a large column of Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers moving from Chechnya to North Ossetia via Ingushetia.

In pursuing their anti-Russian stance, Udugov and Dokka Umarov have pressed the Caucasus countries to unite. They said all Caucasians have a common culture, but Moscow has sought to foment hatred of Caucasians among Russians.

“The Russian leadership also acts like fascist thugs that kill Caucasians on the streets of Russian cities,” Umarov said.

“People in all the Muslim-inhabited territories that were conquered by Russia are periodically subjected to genocide,” Udugov said. “So if we are to speak of the adversary as the source of a threat that involves violence, enemy No. 1 is Russia. With this enemy, we are at war.”

Have you ever opened up your local newspaper and wondered why there is so much coverage of homosexuals and issues of concern to homosexuals? Have you ever wondered why coverage of homosexuals and their cause is so universally positive?

I will explain it to you.

When I first entered the news business back in the late 1970s, there was an indelicate old adage that simplified the standards of the industry with regard to personal and journalistic conflicts of interest.

The curmudgeonly city editor would straightforwardly explain to his reporter: “Hey, I don’t care if you sleep with elephants, just don’t cover the circus.”

That remained the American journalistic ethic until “the invasion.”

What invasion?

The invasion of America’s newsrooms by the elephants and their suitors

Of course, I don’t literally mean elephants and those fond of elephants invaded the news business. But the very behavior that crude expression was meant to discourage became de rigueur.

What am I talking about?

I’m telling you something few others could tell you. I am talking to you as a long-time member of the media elite. I am relating to you unique experiences I had as the editor in chief of major-market daily newspapers. I am explaining to you how America’s news business became a propaganda business manipulated by pressure groups. I am revealing, as an insider, the way the press was invaded and taken over by radical activists with a perverse and extreme agenda.

The NLGJA’s president works at the New York Post. Board members work at the Fox News Network, CNN, NBC and major newspapers.

Maybe you think this is a healthy development within the media. Perhaps you believe it will lead to more “tolerance” and “diversity” within the press.

I’ve got news for you – it leads to exactly the opposite.

At previous nationalconferences, it has been suggested by participants that journalists should not even bother seeking other points of view on homosexuals’ issues and stories. It has been suggested that differing points of view should not even be permitted to be aired by their news organizations.

In 2000, CBS correspondent and NLJGA member Jeffrey Kofman made the point: “The argument (is): Why do we constantly see in coverage of gayandlesbian, bisexual and transgender issues the homophobes and the fag-haters quoted in stories when, of course, we don’t do that with Jews, blacks, et cetera?”

Paula Madison, vice president of diversity at NBC and news director for the NBC New York City affiliate WNBC, added: “I agree with him. I don’t see why we would seek out … the absurd, inane point of view just to get another point of view.”

Kofman rejoined: “All of us have seen and continue to see a lot of coverage that includes perspectives on gayissues that include people who just simply are intolerant and perhaps not qualified as well.”

And those are examples of why we advise against sleeping with elephants and covering the circus.

But, here’s the good news – and there’s much more to be found in “Stop the Presses!” These people, these activists masquerading as journalists, do so in the controlled media – the establishment press, the “downstream media.” And what’s happening in the world of the “lamestream media” these days? It’s imploding.

The activists within the media, whether they realize it or not, are mapping a route to their own self-destruction and disfranchisement.

In my humble opinion, it couldn’t happen to a more arrogant bunch of fascist mind-control freaks.